


Chroma

by always_a_slut_for_hc



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn, Zuko gets redemption a little earlier than planned, ft Uncle Iroh the hopeless romantic, two halves of a whole repressed idiot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:41:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25581496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_a_slut_for_hc/pseuds/always_a_slut_for_hc
Summary: Marked with each other’s eyes, Sokka and Zuko deny being soulmates on the opposite sides of a hundred-year war. Predictably, it doesn’t work. But where do four star-crossed kids go from here, in the middle of wartime?Soulmate AU from the Boy in the Iceberg onwards.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 144





	1. I'm allied to the winter

The warpaint was thick and chalky, staining Sokka’s fingers as he painted his face in the traditional patterns of his people. The whorls and edges carved out his features, made him look older than his fourteen years, made him look like a man. A warrior of the Southern Water Tribe.

The only warrior in the village left to face the ashmakers when they came. And they were coming, thanks to Katara and Aang’s absolute stupidity on the old derelict warship. He’d yell at her later, if they survived the coming raid. 

Sokka finished the last of his paint, knew without seeing that he almost looked the picture of a true water tribe warrior, now, if only it weren’t for his eyes.

Sokka almost never met anyone’s gaze, not even his own in a mirror. He put his warpaint on by feel and memory, had Katara shave his head for him, even turned away from the sea when it lay glassy and smooth. Anything, anything he could do not to see his own eyes. 

He knew the right one shone bright, Water Tribe blue, and the left…

His left eye was a fierce yellow, the gold of the midnight sun low above the horizon. 

The gold of the Fire Nation, of the people who had killed his mother, and of his soulmate.

Soulmate eyes, he remembered his mother explaining long ago, would always match. The right eye would be the color it was meant to be, and the left would be the color of your soulmate’s. He couldn’t remember his mother’s face, but he remembered looking at her two bright blue eyes, and asking what color his were. He remembered the way her smile had dropped, and she’d looked away. People always looked away from him, in the end.

“It’s not fair,” he mumbled, and very carefully didn’t cry as he lifted his club and stormed out of the tent.

It was all well and good for Katara, Sokka thought fiercely, stomping his way to his sentry wall. She’d been born with one blue eye and one grey - her soulmate could’ve been from anywhere. The Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, even the Fire Nation had grey-eyed citizens. But of course, being Katara, she’d had to go and become instant soulmates with that weird airbender kid from the iceberg. Like, Sokka hadn’t even known there were any more air benders left, and then his kid sister and the boy were staring into each other’s eyes with an intensity he’d never seen, like the air between them was electric, like they never wanted to look at anything else ever again. 

“Um. Hello?” he’d said, waving his arms above his head. “Katara?” She’d turned to him with an expression of unbridled joy - an expression so unfamiliar on her face that he’d almost forgotten how it looked there. And in that moment, he’d known everything would change.

It’s not that he didn’t like Aang! Aang seemed fine, if a little young and immature, and what was with him not even knowing about the war? It was just - Katara was fourteen! Aang was like, twelve or something! And now they were what, soulmates, destined to be sickeningly happy together forever?

And here was Sokka, fifteen years old, with one traitor eye and the knowledge that if he ever met his soulmate, he’d reject them. Because of course he would! He hated the Fire Nation. He hated them more than anyone.

Sokka had told that to his father, the day the men had left for war. He’d painted his face, just like today, and begged his Chief to take him along, gazing imploringly at his father.  
Chief Hakoda didn’t meet his son’s eyes. He never did, anymore, always staring just behind Sokka, or through him, or at Katara, and they both knew why.

“I hate them, Dad!” Sokka had cried. “I hate the Fire Nation, too, you have to believe me!” He’d sniffed, tears spilling through his warpaint even as he fought to keep them away.

“I’m not a traitor, Dad! Take me with you!”

Dad looked at him, then, really looked into Sokka’s eyes, meeting the mismatched pair with his own steady blue, and reached out to take his shoulders.

“Sokka. You could never be a traitor, son. I know you couldn’t. But I need you here.”

Sokka had slumped his shoulders, knowing that his Dad wouldn’t back down on this. That day, he’d sworn to himself that he’d protect the village in his father’s wake, to his death if need be.

Now was his chance, apparently. Black snow swirled around Sokka as he stood defiant on the parapet, obscuring the Fire Navy ship until it was almost on top of him. The ice shivered and cracked under the steel bow of the ship, but Sokka stood firm until the last second, pushed back by the cascading fall of snow from his barrier wall.

Well, stood firm until that giant steel gangplank shuddered down, releasing four Fire Nation soldiers. Sokka charged the first one bodily, screaming what was meant to be a war cry but ended up being a shriek as the lead soldier quickly and efficiently kicked him into a snowbank.

Sokka struggled out, wiping off most of his war paint in the process, and set his teeth. The soldier was terrorizing the village, _his_ village, with an arching swipe of flame. _Dad’s counting on you,_ he thought, and rushed in again. Four versus one was nothing to a true Water Tribe warrior, or something like that. 

But this Fire Nation soldier was slippery, and Sokka found himself landing hard on his ass when the jerk dodged his totally-not-telegraphed attack. Fire gushed overhead, and Sokka yelped and rolled, chucking his boomerang on instinct. 

_Shit._ Maybe his instincts weren’t so great - now he had no weapons.

“Show no fear!” came a tiny voice to his right, and Sokka snagged the spear the kid threw at him. he thought, and charged across the snow.

He got within maybe six feet of the soldier, spear outstretched, when they locked eyes. The soldier had one bright gold eye glittering evilly from the depths of his helmet, and one eye that almost looked closed. Both stared straight at Sokka, meeting his gaze head on.

Sokka felt like he’d been hit in the chest by one of Katara’s giant snowballs. Time seemed to slow down, and he watched as the ashmaker’s eyes widened unevenly into an expression of pure, unadulterated shock. A frission of _something_ ran down Sokka’s spine, and he shivered to a halt right in front of the soldier, so close he could see the puffs of hot breath escaping as the soldier started to breathe fast and shallow.

Up close Sokka could see the reason for the half-opened eye: a huge burn scar of ropy, reddened skin covered half the other boy’s face until it disappeared under his helmet. The eyebrow was gone, and the eye seemed to be forced into a permanent half-open position, but the eye underneath was a deep, brilliant blue.

He could also see that the soldier was a boy, about Sokka’s age, which was…weird. Even though Sokka had pleaded with his dad to go to war, he couldn’t believe the Fire Nation was actually sending kids out. 

Although, ultimate evil and all that—

“You-“ the soldier choked out. “You’re-“

Sokka could understand. He didn’t think he could make words if he even tried - his mind was swirling with emotions, so many thoughts and feelings that he swayed a little on his feet. _This must be my soulmate_ , he thought, and his heart roared in his chest at the notion. A sensation of something like lightning set his skin alight, raising the hair on the back of his neck. He wanted to reach out and touch, so _badly_ , like soulmates were supposed to when they met, to start the bond between them.

But of course, with Sokka’s luck, his soulmate had to be the evil leader of the Fire Navy ship currently terrorizing his village. And he remembered the promise he’d made, long ago when his dad left, to reject his soulmate if he ever met them.

But the pull towards the other boy was so _strong_. Sokka couldn’t keep himself from drinking in the sight of his soulmate, standing there steaming in the arctic air with an expression of - was that _fear?_

The other teen scowled and the expression disappeared. He opened his mouth to speak. Sokka’s traitorous heart jumped at the chance to hear him say anything beyond “you”-

And that was when Boomerang decided to come back. 

It hit the soldier right in the back of the head, clanging on the stupid iron helmet all the ashmakers wore. He grunted in pain and stumbled forward a few steps, hands outstretched.

Sokka caught him. 

It was completely instinctual: the soldier was off-balance and stumbling, Sokka was still frozen to the spot like a little kid’s snowman, his hands reached out and they connected -

Suddenly, warmth spread from their joined hands, traveling up Sokka’s arm and flushing his whole body with a contented heat. He gasped, at the same time as the soldier. Sokka looked into the face of his enemy and saw the same need, the same connection in those mismatched eyes, and immediately dropped his hands like he’d been burned.

Maybe he had. He could still feel the heat of the soldier’s hands as they’d gripped his - 

No. He had to shut this down, now, before it got any worse. Sokka wasn’t a traitor, he _wasn’t_ , and he would prove it right here, right now, by rejecting his evil Fire Nation soulmate. 

Ruthlessly, he pushed down both the spreading warmth and the pleading of his heart.

“What-“ he started to say to the soldier, and then suddenly the soldier was eight feet in the air, landing in an undignified heap in front of the other ashmakers, while Aang did a victory lap on the otter penguin.

“Hey, Katara! Hey, Sokka!’

“Hi, Aang. Thanks for coming,” Sokka deadpanned. He’d known the kid wasn’t really going to stay away for long, no matter what he and Gran Gran had decreed. Katara was his soulmate, and they’d just met! The bond would have to be solidified. They wouldn’t be able to be out of reach of each other for a while. He’d just been angry at the kid for endangering them all, and wanted him out of the way for a little bit.

He did wish the village kids liked _him_ as much as they liked Aang, but having a yellow eye will do that to a guy.

It all happened too quickly after that. Aang admitted he was the _Avatar,_ which was crazy because he was just some twelve-year-old kid who didn’t even know there was a war on, the soldier with the raspy voice (Sokka crushed the tiny voice inside of him that kept insisting on _soulmate_ ) shot flames out of his hands, and Aang-

Aang was surrendering. 

“If I go with you, will you promise to leave everyone alone?”

The soldier, who’d lost his helmet and now sported an insane hairstyle of a bald head with a ponytail sticking out the back, lowered his hands and nodded. His men came forward, dwarfing Aang, and grabbed his arms. 

Katara broke away from where Sokka and the villagers were huddled. He reached for her, but she was already crying out towards the soldiers.

“No, Aang, don’t do this!”

“Don’t worry, Katara,” said Aang cheerfully, walking toward the Fire Navy ship. “It’ll be ok-“

He suddenly spasmed in the soldiers’ grip, lifting his legs off the ground so he hung suspended between them. Behind him, Katara fell to her hands and knees in the snow, her arms shaking. 

“Katara!” Sokka yelped, rushing forwards and dropping to his knees beside his sister. “Katara, are you ok?”

“Aang-“ she said brokenly, reaching a hand out to the struggling body in orange up ahead. 

“What’s going on?” came a raspy, broken voice. The soldier stood next to Aang, looking between the kid and Katara in confusion. Sokka felt a rush of anger, at the soldier, at Aang, at the spirits for cursing him with the worst possible soulmate _ever._

“They’re soulmates, you idiot! Their bond hasn’t fully formed yet, and they can’t be separated!” he yelled.

“Why not?” the soldier said, sounding even more confused.

“Why not?! ’Cause it’s barbaric! The bond won’t ever fully recover if they’re separated now! They’ll be Severed!” Sokka squinted at the soldier ( _not_ his soulmate) and saw no understanding on the other teen’s face. 

_Figures_ , he thought. _The Fire Nation probably can’t even have soulmates. They’re too evil._ Meaning it was a one-sided bond and eventual Severing for Sokka. Of course. Because his luck wasn’t bad enough already.

Another Fire Nation soldier was coming down the gangplank now, shorter and rounder and older than the rest. He stopped next to the teenage soldier, and took in the scene - Aang, twisting in pain between two soldiers, Katara a little ways away, shaking in pain on the frozen ground, and Sokka, curled over his sister protectively.

“Prince Zuko,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “What is going on here?”

Sokka’s jaw dropped. The soldier ( _not_ his soulmate) was a prince? The prince of the fire nation? Apparently, his luck _could_ get worse. Sokka promised to stop asking rhetorical questions if they would just stop proving him wrong all the time.

The prince was speaking in that low, rough voice that seemed to pry open Sokka’s ribcage and shoot straight to his heart. “He-“ and he pointed at Aang, “is the Avatar, and she-“ he pointed at Katara, “is his soulmate, and he-“ pointing at Sokka, “said they can’t be separated, or something.”

“I see,” said the old man, coming close to Katara and Sokka. “You seem like a wise boy,” he continued, and Sokka looked at him in shock. The old man’s tawny and brown eyes took him in, widening as they locked eyes. Sokka flinched, unused to anyone except Katara looking him in the eyes. Even Gran-Gran wouldn't.

He stared at Sokka for just a second too long, then turned around back to the prince. “The boy is right, Prince Zuko. You cannot separate two soulmates who have just found each other. It isn’t right, and it will anger the spirits.”

“But, Uncle-“

“Prince Zuko. It is not an honorable thing, to come between two soulmates.” The prince seemed to want to argue more, but deflated and turned away from his uncle. 

“Fine,” he growled. “Get the avatar and the girl on the ship!”

Sokka’s heart dropped. They were going to take his sister. They were going to take his baby sister away in chains and they’d find out she was a waterbender and that’d be even _worse-_

The soldiers were coming towards them, hands outstretched to throw fire. Sokka stood in front of Katara and brandished his spear. “Don’t you come near us!” he shouted, his voice cracking embarrassingly. “I won’t let you take her!”

“Actually, you will need to come with us, as well,” said the old man, with obvious regret. Both the Sokka and the prince looked at him in shock. 

“What?! Uncle, what are you-“

“No way am I going with you, or letting you take my sister!” Aang had already disappeared up the gangplank, and Katara was still hunched on the ground, shaking too badly to even lift her head.

The soldiers came closer. Sokka struck out with the spear, but it was batted aside, and he ducked as a plume of fire shot at his face. The other soldier kicked out his foot, and he went down hard. He stabbed upwards with the spear and caught one of them in the shoulder, but spear was snatched from his hands, set aflame, and tossed aside to burn.

Sokka’s eyes followed the flaming path of his last weapon, then gasped and choked as a booted foot connected with his ribs. He hunched around his torso in pain, and when he uncurled, the soldiers were hoisting Katara up by her arms and dragging her towards the ship.

“No!” he screamed, and charged after them. A crackling sound filled the air, and he heard the villagers scream as a huge fireball impacted the snow right in front of him, tossing him back with its force. He landed flat on his back, and the air knocked out of him with a wheeze. He rolled to his side, aching and gasping for a breath that just wouldn’t come.

 _Katara. Gotta protect Katara._ Sokka gritted his teeth and struggled to his feet, holding his (probably broken?) ribs. His head felt dizzy, and his eyes wouldn’t focus. He shook his head, starting towards the blurry black shape that was the Fire Navy ship. Indistinctly, he could hear voices arguing.

“No. We don’t need him. Just the Avatar, and the girl, if we have to.”

“But, Prince Zuko, you are risking the same Severance as the Avatar was experiencing.”“I’ll get through it. I’m not a traitor, Uncle.”

“But-“

“Get on the ship. I’m going home.” Sokka blinked, and the fuzziness resolved itself into the ship, with two figures making their way up the gangplank. There was no sign of Katara.

Sokka took off at a dead sprint for the gangplank. He had to get on that ship somehow, had to save his sister, he wouldn’t leave her to be imprisoned by the Fire Nation forever-

The gangplank started to rise. Sokka tensed, then leapt with all his strength at the metal edge of the gangplank. His fingers brushed it, gripping-

And then he fell. His knees hit the ice, sending a shuddering vibration though his aching body. The gangplank closed with a shriek of metal, and the ship began to move backwards through the ice, causing floes to break off into the sea.

Sokka knelt, watching the ship recede into the distance, and knew that he had let down his father, his sister, and his entire tribe. 

He may not be a traitor, but being a failure was so much worse.


	2. get a life with the dreamer's dream

Zuko strode through the halls of the _Wani_ , ignoring the tremble in his step and forcing his mind away from any thoughts of the little Water Tribe Village and the boy he’d left there in the snow. Lieutenant Jee fell in step beside him, awaiting his commander’s bidding.

“Put the prisoners in the cells,” Zuko ordered. “Make sure they can touch hands.” Jee nodded crisply and departed. Zuko stared at his retreating back and cursed his uncle’s softness.

His father would never have let the Avatar and the girl stay in proximity, no matter how recent the bond. Lord Ozai found soulmates a shameful weakness, ripe for exploitation, and thus to be eradicated at all costs.

At _all_ costs. 

Zuko stomped his way up the corridor to yell at his uncle.

—

Ensconced in his cozy stateroom, General Iroh prepared a pot of tea. Steam filled the room as he heated the pot in his hands to not-quite-a-boil, and then relaxed, setting it on the low table with its fellow cups. Iroh set himself down as well, and waited for the footsteps getting steadily louder outside to coalesce into his nephew, standing in his door and steaming in the icy Arctic air.

“Prince Zuko, please,” he gestured to the cushion, and Zuko threw himself down. “I’ve prepared jasmine. Your favorite!”

A huff from the teenager. Then a tiny bow of the head as he accepted the cup and took a sip. “Thank you, Uncle.”

“Now. What a day! You’ve found the Avatar, and something else, I think,” said Iroh lightly. HIs nephew was staring into his teacup like he could set it to boiling by the power of his gaze alone. Delicacy was needed, then. “Thank you for bringing the girl along, as well. Soulbonds are spirit-touched, and it would not do well to disrupt them.”

His nephew gave a tiny half shrug. “She’s useful to us as a hostage. Makes for a good bargaining chip against the Avatar.”

Iroh suppressed a sigh. _Oh Zuko, always fighting against your better nature._ “Still!” he said brightly. “You allowed them to touch in their captivity. This is a mercy not many would have shown.”

Zuko only hunched in on himself further, as though Iroh had shamed him with the label of merciful. With a father like his, perhaps it was shameful. Ozai had done so much to twist his children from the innocents they were, as their family had twisted their nation.

“Uncle?” came Zuko’s voice, snapping Iroh from his thoughts. “Was that boy really— was he — did you see—”

His eyes, one pure gold, one a slitted flash of blue, stared into Iroh’s face. Zuko was always like this, now: he met everyone’s gaze with a challenge, almost daring them to say anything about his mismatched eyes or the burn scar marring the left side. Most took it as a hostile stare, but Iroh knew it was only the gaze of a one who loathed pity, and who preferred to get any unpleasantness over with quickly.

“Did I see his eyes?” Iroh said, gently. Zuko gave a sharp, shallow nod. “I did, nephew. They are the perfect mirror image to yours.”

Every candle in the room jumped and sparked wildly. Zuko stiffened, Iroh waited, and eventually Zuko ground out, “Not quite.”

Iroh’s heart ached for the boy who had become as dear to him as his own son. He longed to take him in his arms as he would Lu Ten, as he would have even three years ago, but he knew this scarred, wounded Zuko would not allow it. So he reached across the table and covered Zuko’s clenched fists with his own, feeling them heat and shake.

“Listen to me, Prince Zuko. Long ago, before the war, those with eyes from other nations were thought of as a good omen to their nation. Through their soulmate bonds, they would foster understanding among the nations, and spread knowledge and culture across the world. It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it become rigid and stale.”

“Like the Avatar,” said Zuko, and Iroh’s heart leapt. He must tread carefully, here.

“Yes. The Avatar is the combination of the four elements in one person. That is what makes the Avatar so powerful. In this same way, soulbonds are powerful, too.”

Zuko scoffed. “Not for the Fire Nation, they’re not.” His fists slid out from under Iroh’s hands and he stood, then bowed with the Flame to Iroh. “Thank you for the tea.” 

Iroh sighed inwardly, watching Zuko make his way to the door. “Nephew!” he called, and Zuko paused, turning his left side back towards his uncle. “Severance is not an experience I would wish on my worst enemy. It will be painful, and it will leave you with irreparable damage.”

Unconsciously, Zuko’s hand came up to his scarred left eye. He turned away, a dark silhouette framed in the open door. 

“Understood,” he rasped. 

The door clanged shut. Iroh sat with his tea and his candles, and cursed his brother.

—

Zuko stomped down to his ship’s tiny brig. His footsteps echoed in the steel hallways with a horrible metallic resonance that still, three years later, put Zuko’s teeth on edge. The _Wani_ was a piss-poor excuse for a ship, no matter how faithful she’d been for the last three years. She’d been about to be decommissioned when she came under Zuko’s…command, for lack of a better term, and it showed. The ship’s mechanic, Ying, was a hardworking man, but it was too much for him to take. He’d taken to showing anyone and everyone how to fix the numerous mechanical problems that sprung up around the ship, and now even Zuko could (and frequently, would) just fix any issue they saw themselves.

He didn’t see anything too amiss on his trip down to the brig, other than the ever-present layer of water that covered the floor. They’d found and patched so many leaks down here, the walls were more patch than panel. But the leak continued.

A guard stood at the entrance to the brig and nodded as Zuko entered. His feet made little pattering noises in the puddle on the floor as he walked down the row of six small cells. The Avatar and his soulmate were in the last two cells, the driest ones. Zuko stopped at the end of the hall and looked at his prize: the boy who would finally, after three years, allow him to go home.

The Avatar was sitting on the cot in his cell on the left, pushed up against the bars to the hall. Across the way, the water tribe girl had done the same on the right, and they were both sitting with one hand through the bars, holding on to each other. They’d obviously heard him coming, and were looking up at him with their matching mirror gazes, but refused to let go.

It didn’t look very comfortable. 

Zuko pushed the thought down and decided that enemies to the Fire Nation probably didn’t deserve to be comfortable. He’d let them touch, right? That would have to be enough.

He realized he’d been staring much too intently at their joined hands. At the same moment, the girl spoke, her voice dripping with obvious hatred.

“What do you want, _Prince_ Zuko?

Eyes still locked on their joined hands, Zuko answered almost absently. “I want to go home.”

“What?”

Zuko glanced at the Avatar, who hadn’t spoken a word yet, just looked at Zuko with one grey eye and one blue eye, the same shade as Zuko’s traitorous left eye, and the girl’s, and the water tribe boy they’d left behind. His soulmate. “All four of us,” he whispered, and the Avatar looked confused.

The girl was just as confused, apparently. “What?” she said again. Zuko shook himself, gritted his teeth, and got back to the matter at hand.

“Avatar. I need to ask you some questions.”

“O-ok,” the Avatar responded hesitantly. “I guess?”

This interrogation was going pretty well, all things considered. Usually Zuko had to yell a _lot_ more.

“You haven’t been seen for a hundred years. Where have you been? What are you planning? Are there Airbender legions who would pose a threat to the Fire Nation?”

“What?” the Avatar said, eyes going wide in confusion. “Legions of airbenders? We didn’t even have an army. We’re pacifists?” 

The girl butted in. “Yeah, didn’t your people destroy all the airbenders, ashmaker? What, didn’t do a good enough job?”

Zuko ignored her. “Answer the question. Where have you been for a hundred years? What are you planning?”

The kid — the _Avatar_ — shrugged. “I was — I got kind of frozen? In an iceberg, with Appa —“ his face went from confused to abject worry in the span of a flame-flicker. “Katara! Appa’s still out there! Oh man, I just left him, he’s gonna be all alone!”

“It’s fine, Aang,” said the water tribe peasant. “Sokka’ll take care of him until we break out of here and get him back.” This was directed with a pointed glare at Zuko, who wasn’t following the conversation entirely but didn’t like the direction it was going.

“Hey! There won’t be any escaping!” he growled. “You two are staying here. Be grateful I even let you come, _peasant_.” The water tribe girl looked less than impressed. “Who even is Appa? And Sokka?”

“Appa’s my flying bison!” the Avatar chirped. “We’re best friends. And Sokka’s the boy you kicked in the snow at the village, Katara’s brother!”

“Aang!’ Katara hissed. “Don’t just give out information to the evil Fire Nation guy!”

Zuko didn’t really pay attention as their conversation devolved into furious whispers right in front of him, too busy thinking about the name he’d just been given. _Sokka._ The Water Tribe warrior who been the only one, besides the Avatar, to stand up to Zuko and his men. The other boy had been untrained and foolish when he attacked, but Zuko had to admit, he had spirit. When their eyes had met, he’d felt like he’d lost control of his Breath of Fire, heat licking up his spine even in the Arctic cold. It had been jarring, to see his own eyes staring back at him from that dark, unblemished face, but nothing had ever felt so right, so true.

It didn’t matter, anyway. Zuko had come to terms with the fact that he’d be Severed long ago, when he’d lost his face, his title, and his family in one fell swoop. His father would never welcome him back with a Water Tribe soulmate, even with the Avatar in hand. No, they could never be, but at least now Zuko had a name. _Sokka._

“Um. Are you ok?” 

Zuko flinched at the voice and refocused. Yes. The Avatar. His three-year mission was finally coming to an end, he’d be welcomed back to Caldera with honor, and everything would just go back to the way it was. He opened his mouth to interrogate the Avatar further about this flying bison business—

Until a shivering pain took him straight down to his knees. Zuko clenched his teeth to keep from crying out and folded into his chest as it shook through him, like fire singeing every single one of his nerve endings. It licked stripes of pain down his chi lines so intense he was gasping, down there on his knees in the dampness of the cell block. 

Frightened voices swirled above him, but Zuko couldn’t make them out, just focusing on breathing through it all and not screaming, not crying out on his knees _again._

The pain lessened, faded, then released. Zuko lifted his head to find the Avatar and the girl staring at him in complete shock. _Shit._ He’d embarrassed himself in front of his own prisoners.

“Are you ok?” said the Avatar again. Zuko nodded mutely. “Are you being Severed?” the kid went on. “Because that looked like the kind of fit I had when Katara and I were separated.”

“Don’t be silly, Aang,” snapped Katara. The momentary glimmer of concern in her eyes had been wiped out, replaced with familiar hatred. “The Fire Nation doesn’t have soulmates.”

“But Sokka—“ the Avatar started.

Zuko just glared at the girl as he stood up from his knees. “Again,” he said icily,”I didn’t have to take you along. And that decision can be reversed.”

The girl, for once, said nothing. Her face looked almost horrified as she stared at him. Zuko lifted a hand to his scar with a pang of self-consciousness, then forced it back down to his side.

“What?’ he snarled.

“Nothing, I just — It’s so dark in here. Can you give us a light?”

Zuko thought of all the ways that giving them a light could help them escape, but…he’d hated the dark, too, at one point in his far-off childhood. With a huff of assent, flame bloomed to life on his palm. He opened the lantern bolted to the wall at the end of the corridor, lit it, and turned back to his prisoners. “Better?”

Somehow, it’d made it worse. The girl’s eyes were wide, and she was covering her mouth with the hand that wasn’t clenching the Avatar’s. “No, no, no,” she muttered, and Zuko’s face twisted. 

“What? The scar too ugly for you?”

“ _You’re_ Sokka’s soulmate?” she cried, her face a mask of grief at the sight of her brother’s eyes in his scarred, banished, imperial soulmate. Zuko’s heart dropped. If this was how she was reacting, he could only imagine the disappointment and anguish from his _actual_ soulmate, the rejection that was sure to follow —

He pushed that down too, pushed it deep, and let anger and rage fill the void within him. “I wouldn’t worry too much,” he snarled, “we’ll be Severed soon enough.”

She cried harder at that, and Zuko turned and left the cellblock, the sounds of her sobs and the Avatar’s comforting murmurs bouncing off the metal walls behind him.

A stormy sky greeted his exit, and a crewman rushing for his attention. “What is it,” Zuko snapped, his temper fraying rapidly. The crewman didn’t answer, just pointed a finger at the sky behind Zuko. He turned, and spotted a small dot in the sky, rapidly getting larger, becoming some sort of…animal?

“What is that?” he shouted, and then the beast was on them.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write longfic, so this'll be an adventure for all of us! Tags/warnings may change, I'll put stuff in the notes up top if it's a CW!
> 
> Leave a comment and I'll leave a dollar under your pillow like the Tooth Fairy of fanfiction, somehow?


End file.
